"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." --Thomas Jefferson

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

On your mark, get set...

This was a first for me. I was walking from the office back to my classroom this morning after having made some copies. As I meandered along the quad, I glanced over just in time to see one boy swing at another. The boy who swung then walked away and yelled, "Fuck you, Nigga!"

That of course caused me to change direction and begin walking toward Mr. Potty Mouth. I walked up to him and said, "Good morning! My name is Mr. Ch..." That's as far as I got. The kid looked at me, then looked at my I.D. badge, then took off like a shot! I mean he sprinted as fast as his legs could carry him. For a second, I stood there dumbfounded. I had never had a student run away from me before. Had I known who the student was, I would have just let him run and written up the referral at my leisure. However, I had no idea who this kid was, and I wasn't about to count on some bystander student giving up the name. So, I decided "Oh, what the heck", and I sprinted after the student.

It's been 15 to 20 years now, but I ran track in high school and college (400m/800m/Mile). This morning, I was glad to see that my almost-36 year old legs still have the magic. I caught up to that little jackrabbit, and the funniest part is when he looked behind him with a slight grin on his face, that quickly disappeared when he realized that I was right on his tail. He ran for a couple more seconds, put on the brakes, and then began walking as if he had been doing so the whole time. I asked the student for his name, but he refused to give it to me. I followed him while repeatedly asking for his name until I saw a campus supervisor up ahead. The c.s. knew the kid and once I had his name, I disengaged.

Later that day, I wrote up a referral for Mr. Running Man - chuckling with each word of my narrative. Sometimes, I love my job!

5 comments:

Just be careful that you don't even get close to touching the miscreant or he will be living in your house.

Have you ever really examined your liability insurance? Generally what will be paid toward a lawyer to protect you against a suit is about $10,000, but the amount that will be paid out on successful claims against you is enormous.

You have NEA and I have another union, so I am curious if yours is any better.

You bet I have liability insurance, but I don't have it through the NEA or the CTA. I don't belong to either of those unions, having quit last year. Instead, I am an agency fee payer. That means I must pay dues to my local, the CTA, and the NEA in the amount that is used for contract negotiations. Any money those organizations use for political activism (usually of the left-wing variety) gets returned to me every year. The check is usually around $350. I then use that refund to pay for my annual membership dues in the Association of American Educators (AAE). Through the AAE, I have an liability policy that pays $2 million per occurence, and my defense fees are also paid for.

If you would like to know more, go to www.aaeteachers.org. For more info about your options regarding your membership in a teacher union, go to the CTEN website in my blogroll.

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I am native of the mountains of northern California; 12-year veteran of the U.S. Army and California National Guard; Secondary School History teacher; Husband; Father of Two; and three-time honoree as Time Magazine's Person of the Year (2003, 2006, 2011).